Associate Professors Of Institutes Of Technology Not Experts Recognized Under Information And Technology Act: Allahabad High Court

While dealing with dispute regarding appointment on various posts in U.P. Jal Nigam, the Allahabad High Court has held that Associate Professors of Institutes of Technology are not experts recognized under the Information and Technology Act, 2000 for the purposes of examination of electronic evidence.Justice Ajit Kumar held,“expert opinions that were sought from the Associate Professors of Institutes of Technology were neither the experts recognized under the Information and Technology Act, 2000, nor these opinions could have been termed to be admissible within the legal framework as prescribed for under the Act, 2000 besides the fact that opinions were not conclusive.”Case BackgroundWhen the UP Jal Nigam split into Urban and Rural entities, applications for employment at various levels were taken out in 2016. Computer Based Tests (CBT) were conducted for each post in various shifts where different sets of question papers were made. After the result, Interview Boards were constituted separately for each class of employee. Certain discrepancies were seen in the timing of the interview process.Eventually, the selection for the post of stenographer was cancelled whereas select lists for the posts of Assistant Engineers, Junior Engineers and Routine Grade Clerks were issued along with appointment letters. M/s Aptech Limited is a private agency, who had been outsourced the entire selection process. As per the Data Retention Agreement between Aptech and UP Jal Nigam, all data was to be stored for 6 months at the secondary centre. The Court noted that the master answer key was never published till an RTI was filed requesting the same and then Jal Nigam asked Aptech to publish the answer keys of CBT online. The publication of answer keys led to candidates approaching the High Court claiming that they had been wrongly ousted from the selection list. Since various discrepancies were found in the answer key and question paper for all grades, Corporation started 2 in-house inquiries in 2017. Subsequently, the entire selection process and appointments were annulled due to which the already appointed candidates approached the High Court. The High Court set aside the order impugned on grounds that each petitioner was entitled to give her explanation before removal from service. Corporation was directed to pass fresh orders. The Supreme Court did not interfere with the order of the High Court, however, gave liberty to the Corporation to raise the plea for reworking the merit list. The High Court declined to entertain the review petition holding that while passing fresh orders, the Corporation had the power to look into every aspect of the matter. After investigation, proceedings under IPC, Prevention of Corruption Act and Information and Technology Act were launched against the officials of Aptech. The Apex Court, in SLP against the review petition, ordered the Corporation to comply with the order of the High Court. In pursuance to this order, in 2020, the Corporation concluded that it could not save the selection process and segregate tainted and untainted candidates in respect of Assistant Engineers, Junior Engineers and Routine Grade Clerks. These orders were challenged before the High Court. High Court VerdictReliance was placed on Section 79-A of the IT Act to hold that CFSL, Hyderabad was a notified forensic agency by the Central Government and thus, its report held evidentiary value. It was held that the report of CFSL was “sufficient evidence to identify and segregate tainted candidates.”Further, it was held that Aptech was not in breach of contract by providing data through secondary storage as there was nothing in the contract between the parties which prohibited Aptech from the same. It was held that deletion of data from cloud server was not violating any agreement. “Thus, in absence of any challenge to the CFSL report, nor anything coming out in the CFSL report questioning correctness of the data stored in the storage device, namely, 6 hard disks which also contained one hard disk having direct mirror image of data taken from the cloud server CtrlS, it can be safely concluded that the data in absence of any dispute as retrieved from the hard disks were the true data taken from primary source cloud server.”Observing that only 1.4 to 8% questions were wrong in the CBT for the three posts, the Court held that the entire examination could not be nullified for such errors. “Thus, there is only a very miniscule percentage or number of doubtful questions and doubtful answers and this cannot be said to be sufficient ground itself to hold that the entire selection process insofar as conduct of CBT is concerned was compromised.”The Court stood with Aptech on the aspect that it was not involved in the preparation of question paper and answer key and had outsourced the same to experts. It specifically held that the statements recorded by the police of various persons, based on which the SIT report was formed, were...

Associate Professors Of Institutes Of Technology Not Experts Recognized Under Information And Technology Act: Allahabad High Court

Upasna Agrawal

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